


Hard To Say I'm Sorry

by daydreamsonacloudyday



Series: Vira Volkova (V) [3]
Category: Cyberpunk 2077 (Video Game)
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, cursing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-16
Updated: 2021-01-16
Packaged: 2021-03-14 09:01:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28792857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daydreamsonacloudyday/pseuds/daydreamsonacloudyday
Summary: V (Vira)and Johnny have a heart to heart at the oil fields.
Relationships: Johnny Silverhand & Female V, Johnny Silverhand & V, Johnny Silverhand/Female V, Johnny Silverhand/V
Series: Vira Volkova (V) [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2097468
Comments: 4
Kudos: 62





	Hard To Say I'm Sorry

**Author's Note:**

> • This is my version of the "Chippin’ In" side job—a bit from when Vira wakes up after Johnny’s little "adventure" in her body, and then mostly the oil fields conversation (AKA the two of them just making me want to weep with their feelings for each other)  
> • Some of the dialogue is the same as in-game, but I put my own twist on it to better fit Vira and Johnny. At this point in their relationship, they totally have feelings for each other and just haven’t admitted it to each other yet. They’re in a pretty good place after the Pistis Sophia Hotel, so when he goes uses her body like that, she’s really confused and pissed because it doesn’t align with how he was acting or what he told her that day in the hotel.  
> • I feel like Johnny only did it in the first place because he was having a hard time accepting his feelings for Vira. Like he made the decision to die for her, told her and gave her his dogtags to show her this, and then was like "oh crap???" and went for a final joyride/denial run in her body. Of course, Vira doesn’t know this, so she’s just confused and hurt. Aaaand that leads you right into the beginning of this fic…
> 
> More info about Vira can be found on her website: <https://sites.google.com/view/viravolkova-v/home>
> 
> Title song: "Hard To Say I’m Sorry" by Chicago [ [listen](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hdwgbvMfgY) | [lyrics](https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/chicago/hardtosayimsorrygetaway.html) ]

Rogue was in her face, staring at her. The older woman was practically peering into her fucking soul, and V frowned, tense under her gaze.

"Unbelievable that bastard’s somewhere in your head," Rogue muttered, and V jerked her head back, her hair falling into her face, a welcome shield between the two of them. The Queen of the Afterlife got her hint and backed off, leaving V alone in the shitty motel room she’d woken up in.

V went to sit up, and a sudden wave of nausea swept through her. She’d barely thrown her upper body over the edge of the creaky bed before she was puking _god knows what_ out of her stomach, the vile liquid landing on the floor next to her. Sitting up, she groaned, the change in position making the pounding in her head worse.

"Oh, fuck," came Johnny’s voice, and she snapped her eyes open, finding him standing in front of her. She clenched her teeth, fist tightening on the bedframe as she watched him lazily sit on the the table across from her, not giving her a second glance.

" _Oh, fuck?_ That’s all you gotta say?" she barked, trying to relax herself when the sound of her own voice reverberated throughout her head. "Christ, never again, Johnny."

"Had no idea the pills would lay you out like this," he replied, looking her over.

She snorted. "Maybe it wouldn’t be this bad if you hadn’t chased 'em down with _fuck knows what_." V felt the nausea again, but thankfully it subsided a second later. "You outta be the one feelin' this shit right now."

"Yeah, well, life ain’t fair," Johnny said. He waved at the door to the room. "Let’s get outta here."

"You shittin’ me right now?" V snapped, forcing herself up off the bed. Wobbling, she almost fell over and Johnny materialized in front of her, reaching out to steady her like he usually did when the relic started acting up. Normally, she didn’t mind, even welcomed the help, but now she didn’t want him anywhere near her. "Don’t you fuckin’ touch me," she said, almost snarling at him, and he backed off, arms up in a defensive position. She reached for the wall to steady herself, breathing heavily.

What in the _fuck_ did he think he was doing last night? What happened to the Johnny she’d gotten to know lately, the Johnny she’d talked to at the Pistis Sophia Hotel? What about everything he’d said to her there? Was it a load of bullshit he’d spouted just so he could convince her to pop one of Misty’s pills and take her body for a joy ride?

V couldn’t believe she actually _cared_ about this fucking dipshit. That she _trusted_ him.

Swallowing hard, she looked him in the eyes, his damn sunglasses preventing her from really seeing his dark gaze in the dimly lit room. "Johnny, you promised…" she started, voice quiet, remembering his words to her. The bastard had promised he’d do her no harm—that he’d _die_ for her—and she even admitted she’d do the same for him. For fuck’s sake, he’d given her his old dogtags as _proof_ of his promise…

And then he went and pulled _this_.

He looked away from her, and V wanted to scream in frustration. Instead, she ripped off his dogtags and threw them at him, not even bothering to hide the sense of betrayal she was feeling.

_Fuck him and his fucking promise._

Johnny’s eyes were wide, mouth hanging open as he tried to catch the tags, but they just passed right through his ghostly form. She opened her mouth to yell at him, but another wave of nausea rose up inside her.Covering her mouth, she darted to the bathroom, ignoring the distressed way he was staring at the tags where they landed on the floor.

She puked her guts out into the toilet, and when she was finally done and able to stand, she left the bathroom, finding herself alone in the motel room… Johnny had disappeared.

V’s eyes landed on his dogtags on the floor and she sighed. She couldn’t just leave them there, no matter how pissed she was at him. Walking over to where they landed, she picked them up, tracing her fingers over the embossed lettering on the metal. She felt… well, she was still fucking livid, but there was a sense of lightness in her chest now that she’d had the tags again. V wasn’t even sure it was _her_ that was feeling it—in fact, she was pretty sure it was _Johnny_.

He probably only cared because they were _his_ tags, and clearly, he only cared about himself—selfish bastard that he was.

Johnny must have retreated even further into the back of her mind, because a moment later, she stopped feeling his relief at her grabbing the dogtags, She shook her head and stuffed them into the back pocket of her pants, not bothering to block her own emotions from reaching his little hidey-hole in her head.

As far as V was concerned, he deserved to feel her anger.

\- - - - -

They were quiet as V drove, the purring of the engine of Johnny’s Porsche the only sound filling the air. Her leg was restless, bouncing up and down, and her stomach felt off, and Johnny hadn’t stopped smoking since they started driving towards the Badlands, just as uneasy as she was. She didn’t know if she was making him feel that way, or the other way around—or maybe they were both just anxious as fuck.

Yeah, it was probably the both of them, with the way the night was going.

Sometime during their little mission with Rogue, V had given up on the silent treatment she’d been giving Johnny since the stunt he pulled the other night. She was still pissed at him for what he did, and they hadn’t talked about it yet, but it wasn’t the right time… not when they were driving out to where Smasher had _dumped his body_.

Grayson had been a useless piece of shit when it came to giving them intel on Smasher, but the prick was able to tell them where Johnny had ended up. He’d had Johnny’s Porsche and gun, too, a custom Malorian pistol, and she used that very gun to blow Grayson’s brains out—a fitting end for the asshole, _especially_ for the shit he’d spewed.

She pulled off the highway and onto a dirt road leading to the oil fields north of Night City, following the road until it ended. She got out of the car and surveyed the area, Johnny materializing beside her.

"Can’t believe they bothered to trek it all the way out here," he said, voice low, looking around.

"Better than the junkyard where I landed," V muttered. "C’mon let’s look around."

She didn’t know how long they looked for a sign of his body, of anything, but they came up with nothing, even with her scanning the area with her Kiroshis.

"So that’s how it is," Johnny said, and V turned from where she was looking under some junk to face him. He sat down on a piece of scrap metal, hunched over, looking at the ground. "Nothing here at all," he finished, his voice quiet, _defeated_.

Sighing, V sat across from him. "Did you think they’d give you a headstone? A flag and flowers?"

"Nah, I… I dunno," he answered, shoulders drooped. "A marker? Something, anything."

_Fuck,_ she could feel the tightness in his chest emanating in her own… she’d never seen him like this, and she wanted to _fix it_ , as soon as possible.

"Oh, come on," she said, trying to keep her voice light. "Legendary Rockerboy Johnny Silverhand really needs symbolic, empty gestures?"

Johnny glanced up at her, eyes meeting hers through his aviators. "Guess I do."

_Fuck._

"Thought I’d feel like I’d closed a chapter here," he continued, looking back down to his feet. "Like I’d say goodbye to the old Silverhand, hello to the new."

"And instead you feel…?"

"Like I never even was," Johnny muttered, looking past her, into the distance. "Or like I was still inside Mikoshi."

V felt her chest constrict even more at that, and she knew it was on her end this time, not his. _Fucking Mikoshi_. He felt like he was back in that dark, soul-crushing prison he’d been stuck in for fifty years. She _needed_ to fix this, _now_.

Grabbing her knife, she did the next best thing she could think of after trying to lighten up the mood—she inscribed "JS 2023" into the soft metal sheet she’d sat down on. She put her knife away and brushed aside the debris created from scraping at the metal, satisfied with her impromptu engraving.

"Better?" she asked, glancing back to Johnny.

"A bit," he said, sitting up a little straighter. He stared at her, studying her for a moment before speaking again. "But let’s say it was my real grave. What would you write?" He splayed out his chrome arm, gesturing to an imaginary gravestone. "Here lies Johnny Silverhand…"

V thought about how she’d finish the phrase. They’d been through _a lot_ since she woke up with the biochip in her head. Hell, the biochip was the reason she woke up after getting shot in the first place. The biochip, _Johnny_ , had technically saved her life that day… and he’d done it on more than one occasion since then. She wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for him.

"The Guy Who Saved My Life," she said, finishing his statement.

Taking his aviators off, Johnny stood before her. "V… You don’t know how much I want that to be true," he said, thumbing his glasses in his hands. "Listen, I realize I fucked up a lotta things. Either let down or used every last person who gave me their trust. Blind, selfish bastard that I was." He pinned her with his dark gaze, eyes boring into hers. "But I’ve managed one thing for now. Not to fuck this up, what we have."

V shot up out of her seat and stepped up to him. "Really?" she snapped. "That what that fuckin’ bender was the other night? You not fuckin’ us up?"

Johnny looked away from her, but she was going to keep talking. Because yeah, he hadn’t fucked them up, but he _almost_ had, and he needed to hear it—to face it, just like he was admitting to his mistakes from fifty years ago.

"At the Pistis Sophia… you made me a promise," V continued, remembering the way she’d felt in that hotel room. "I fuckin’ trusted you, Johnny, and you betrayed me."

He winced at her words—at her feelings, too, because she was feeling that betrayal all over again.

But, that went both ways, and she could feel his guilt, could feel the way his chest constricted when hers felt too tight, and how a lump formed in his throat when she felt it in her own.

Johnny cleared his throat, eyeing her warily. "Is it too late to ask for a second chance?"

The fuck was she supposed to say to _that_?

V sat back down, her head in her hands, and he glitched out of existence for a brief second, popping back up next to her as he sat down beside her. His sunglasses were back on, his hands free to pull out a cigarette that he promptly lit and brought to his lips. He took a deep breath from the cig and sighed.

"Most people I thought were my friends, they couldn’t even stand to be in the same room with me," Johnny started, taking another drag of the cigarette. "You’re fuckin’ closest to me by a long shot. There twenty-four seven. And yet… you don’t seem to hate my livin’ guts." He glanced at her, his eyes sad. "At least, so it seemed… till now."

Sitting up, V shook her head. "Johnny," she breathed, stopping herself from reaching out to touch him. "I don’t hate you. I—"

She what? Cared about him? Yeah, she did, despite everything. She cared about him _too much_ if she were being honest. It was why this whole thing hurt so much in the first place—because she cared so damn much.

"It just fuckin’ hurts when someone close to you breaks your trust like that, alright?" she said.

He nodded, taking in what she said. "I…" he started, sighing, unable to hold her gaze. "I’m sorry."

V blinked dumbly at him. "Did you just… _apologize_?"

"Want me to take it the fuck back?" Johnny barked, glaring at her, and she snorted.

"No way! Say it again so I can really take it in." V was grinning like an idiot, she couldn’t help herself. "I wanna cherish this moment."

He took a long drag of his cigarette. "Fuck off."

Laughing, she raised her hands in a defensive position before calming herself. "In all seriousness, I accept your apology, Johnny," she said. "Means a lot."

Johnny grunted, side-eying her. His gaze landed on her chest, but he wasn’t ogling her boobs or anything. She knew _that_ look, and this wasn’t it.

"Gonna put my tags back on now?" he asked, and V sensed almost an uncertainty coming from him. She didn’t realize taking off his dogtags had affected him so much, not like that.

They were still in the back pocket of her pants—she hadn’t worn them since she’d thrown them at him, but she hadn’t left them behind, either—and she took them out, tracing over the impression of his name like she had when he first gave them to her. _Robert John Linder_. That man, that kid, had changed when he came back from war and became Johnny Silverhand. Now, he’d changed again. The old Johnny Silverhand never would have apologized and meant it—now, he did mean it. She knew it. She _felt_ it.

V put the tags back on and looked up at Johnny, his gaze glued to where they rested on her chest. He reached out with his organic hand, and her heart skipped a beat as he touched the dogtags, the backs of his fingers grazing over the metal.

"Much better," Johnny declared, his voice low, dragging his eyes from the tags to meet her gaze.

"Mhm," she hummed, nodding in agreement. V realized just how close they were. She didn’t even know how they got there—did she move closer or did he? Had they both been inching towards each other the longer they talked? Either way, it wouldn’t take much for her to lean forward and press her forehead against Johnny’s and feel his skin against hers. She wanted to close the distance between them, fucking _bury herself against him_ , but she didn’t.

V sat up straight, narrowing her eyes at Johnny. "This is the only second chance you’re getting," she said, pushing her feelings away, ignoring that sharp feeling she had near her heart. "Don’t fuck it up, got it?"

"I’ll try damned hard," he replied, tossing his cigarette on the ground. He bounded to his feet, standing before her. "Johnny Silverhand, Relentless Rockerboy Who Never Gives Up."

Huffing a laugh, V stood as well, smiling at him. "V, Merc With A Dream."

He looked at her over the edge of his sunglasses, lips turning up into a smirk. "Don’t ya mean, _Vira Volkova_ , Girl Named After Russian Porn Star."

"Don’t start, _Robert_ ," V shot back, and Johnny glared at her. "Yeah, exactly. And I’m Ukranian, not Russian, we’ve been over this." He just waved her off and she rolled her eyes. _Clearly_ he was feeling better, if he was back to teasing her again. "Feelin’ better, then?" she asked, just to be sure. "Not feelin’ trapped in here, like Mikoshi?"

Momentarily glitching, Johnny crossed his arms and started pacing. "Yeah. Not sayin’ it’s great, but it’s different," he answered, stopping to stare out into the oil fields. "Sometimes, when I wake up, feels like I’m back for a while."

V furrowed her brow, confused. "What d’you mean—back?"

Johnny shifted, hooking his chrome thumb in the pocket of his stupid leather pants. "Well, like I got this body to myself. Like I’m free. Seconds later, feels like I’m missing somethin’—somethin’ really important," he began, and then he _looked_ at her, and her heart stopped. "Then I realize you’re there, always were, and this stupid wave of relief washes over me."

That ache in her chest was back again, and V had to remember to _breathe_.

"Johnny, I…" she started, swallowing hard, her throat thick. How did he just _say_ shit like that? It had to be the musician in him, because she couldn’t even begin to figure out what to say that would express her feelings like that—let alone have the guts to just come out and say it.

_The fuck with words_ , V thought, and she just let herself _feel_ what she felt for Johnny, knowing he would be able to feel it. For once, she didn’t try to block out that pressure gripping her heart like a vise, and let herself feel how important to her he’d become.

Johnny’s expression softened, and she knew he felt it, that he understood. When his lips spread into a smile—not his stupid smirk, a genuine smile—feelings she wouldn’t even admit to herself started to slip out of the dark hideaways she kept them locked up in, and suddenly it was all just _too much_.

She shut down her emotions before they seeped across whatever barrier was still left in their shared brain, and mentally sifted through their conversation for something else, _anything else,_ to think about other than the fact that she was falling in love—

_Fuck!_

Kicking a piece of garbage on the ground, she zeroed in on a thought, willing herself to fucking _focus_. "When you said you let your friends down… did ya mean Rogue?"

Johnny frowned, crossing his arms. "Rogue, Alt, Kerry, Santiago…"

"Rogue knows 'bout you," V pointed out. "Not all’s lost with her just yet."

"Can’t pretend nothing’s changed over fifty years, can’t just insert myself into her life."

V raised an eyebrow. "Like you haven’t already?"

"True, that," Johnny admitted.

"So, talk to her," she said, pressing the issue. "About this Smasher biz. Something’s up with it."

"Might be right. She was acting weird." He took a second, thinking about it. "Y’know, did promise her I’d take her to the movies, long, long ago," he said, and V frowned. "Call her for me, ask if she’s free some night? Thing is, you’d have to surrender control—again."

Her stomach sank at the thought of Johnny using her body to go on a fucking _date_ with Rogue.

"V?" Johnny asked, pulling her attention from her thoughts.

"Yeah, I’ll call her," she said quickly, not wanting to get into it. She had _no_ reason to care about his relationship with Rogue anyway.

"Ok. Let’s delta, nothin’ to see here after all," he said, glitching and materializing again, walking towards his Porsche.

Jogging to catch up with him, V gave him a once over. "Worth comin’ out all the same?"

"Absolutely. Thanks, V." Johnny’s lips quirked into a tiny smile. "Of all the heads I coulda popped up in, hella glad it was yours."

V smiled back at him… she was glad he’d popped up in her head, too.


End file.
